Topics

White House Willing to Explore ‘Policy Options’ on Crude-Oil Exports

Picture released, 12 December 2007 by the Norwegian Coastal Administration showing an aerial photo of the tanker Navion Britannia which was loading oil from a loading buoy and left a major oilspill in Statfjord, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the Norwegian coast. According to preliminary estimates from the Petroleum Safety Authority, some 3,840 cubic metres, the equivalent of 24,150 barrels or 3,220 tonnes of oil, had spilled into the sea.

Is the White House crack­ing the door open to re­lax­ing the ban on the ex­port of U.S. crude oil?

Well, they’re not rul­ing it out. White House spokes­man Matt Lehrich said the ad­min­is­tra­tion is will­ing to “eval­u­ate policy op­tions.”

Here’s his full com­ment, offered in re­sponse to a high-pro­file Sen­ate hear­ing on the top­ic Thursday:

“The in­crease in do­mest­ic oil pro­duc­tion is a good thing and an im­port­ant part of the Pres­id­ent’s ‘all of the above’ en­ergy strategy. We are closely mon­it­or­ing the im­plic­a­tions of grow­ing do­mest­ic en­ergy sup­plies, in­clud­ing the eco­nom­ic, en­vir­on­ment­al and se­cur­ity op­por­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges that it presents. We will eval­u­ate policy op­tions as needed.”

Na­tion­al Journ­al‘s Amy Harder has much more here on the grow­ing battle over ex­port­ing crude, in­clud­ing claims by two Sen­ate Demo­crats that the ad­min­is­tra­tion doesn’t have au­thor­ity to lift the ban.

The White House com­ment comes weeks after En­ergy Sec­ret­ary Ern­est Mon­iz said dec­ades-old policies that largely ban ex­ports are ripe for re­vis­it­ing, al­though he cau­tioned that it’s not his de­part­ment’s call to make.